A researcher and a graduate student from the Scripps Research Institute have received notable honors for their work to fight congenital disease and forward stem cell research.
The National Institutes of Health handed David Gokhin, a senior research associate in the institute’s Fowler laboratory (which studies cellular architecture), the Pathway to Independence Award from the NIH group that specializes in arthritis, and musculoskeletal and skin diseases. The five-year award is intended to support promising postdoctoral researchers.
His project uses of imaging tools to study molecular mechanisms with the goal of laying the foundation for therapies for certain congenital diseases including muscular dystrophy.
Joel Blanchard, a graduate student at the institute’s Baldwin lab (neurobiology and stem cells), received the 2014 Betty Jean Ogawa Memorial Poster Award at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, with 4,100 members.
Joining five other winners from a field of 700 eligible posters, Blanchard now will be eligible to attend the society’s 2015 annual meeting in Stockholm.
His research, a collaboration with the institute’s Lerner lab (antibody research), is focused on developing ways to convert “ordinary skin cells into embryonic stem cells solely using antibodies that act at the cell surface,” according to a news release.